DIPLO Blog

Skip to content Bob Last Deputy Head, UK Mission Political Team 7th October 2019 Geneva, Switzerland Zombie Wonderland Council sessions often drive a temporary wedge between delegates and their families. The heavy hours estrange us from our partners and children and conversations tend to become rushed and reduced to topics of basic functional necessity. So I was slightly thrown when my son wouldn’t let me get out of the door early one morning until I’d given him an answer to a question of pressing urgency: would I rather fight a chicken-sized zombie or a zombie-sized chicken? It was a question that kept coming back to me as we slogged our way through the voting on the final days of the session. By the time we’d hit the third of three heavily sleep-deprived weeks, I felt much more zombie-like than human and, judging by the wild-eyed stares and sallow complexion of most of my colleagues in the Council chamber, I wasn’t alone. Slowly reducing people to an undead resemblance of their form..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 7th October 2019 Vienna, Austria “Our Planet: Our Business” – what you can do What climate-induced catastrophes might a child born today experience? Such a child might see the disappearance of insects and pollinators. During the child’s lifetime, plant and animal species will be wiped out and crops could fail. This child may watch the coral reefs bleach and die. She or he will wonder why the adults of today could not have done more. What can, and should, businesses be doing right now? The UK was the first G7 country to adopt a legally binding Net Zero emissions target. In 2020 the UK has been nominated to host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, “COP 26”, which will take an ‘all of society’ approach to action. The UK has doubled its commitment to the Green Climate Fund, pledging £1.44bn for the next period. La..

Skip to content William Janowski SIN Officer, Houston Guest blogger for Rosie Duthie Part of Global Science and Innovation Network UK in USA 7th October 2019 USA World cancer Research Day 2019: UK Encouraging Relationships with US Cancer Research Hotspots Cancer is an international problem, requires international solutions! Glad to hear Houston’s Richard Hyde & CPRIT’s CEO Wayne Roberts talk about the value of UK & TX collaboration on the challenge!World Cancer Research Day 2019: UK Encouraging Relationships with US Cancer Research Hotspots No matter your background, the social and economic impacts of cancer are far-reaching. The chances are that cancer impacts somebody you know or love. In the fight against cancer, cutting-edge research takes place both here in the UK and internationally in the US. Such scientific research promises long-term solutions to global challenges. Revealing how this devastating disease will continue to increase globally over the next 20 years, we will take a..

Skip to content Aidan Liddle UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament Part of Conference on Disarmament 4th October 2019 Geneva, Switzerland Disarmament blog: nuclear transparency in action The three principles of disarmament are usually held to be verifiability, irreversibility and transparency. Transparency underpins the other two principles. You can’t tell whether what’s been done is irreversible unless you can verify it; you can’t verify it unless it’s transparent. As such, transparency, often in the shape of reporting by States Parties, is a key obligation of many disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation treaties. Submitting national reports to NPT RevCons is a fairly recent innovation, designed to help States Parties to review how commitments undertaken under the NPT are being implemented. There’s particular interest of course in the reports of the five Nuclear Weapon States, who in 2013 adopted a common framework for their reports to ma..

Skip to content Paul Madden British Ambassador to Japan 4th October 2019 Tokyo, Japan Japan welcomes the Rugby World Cup Well, the Rugby World Cup is underway at last. With four teams to support: England, Scotland, Wales and – together with the Irish Embassy – the all of Ireland team; and 50,000 British fans here, it’s a really busy time for the whole embassy. And following Japan’s historic victory over Ireland, the whole country is going rugby crazy. We put out a lot of useful travel advice for visiting fans on our digital media, as part of the Foreign Office’s Travel Aware guidance. We keep this regularly updated, for example when there were warnings of a typhoon potentially hitting Sapporo, which would have significantly disrupted fans’ travel plans. Fortunately the typhoon veered off. And we’ve used the brilliant London-based Japanese stand-up comedian Yuriko Kotani, to make a series of funny videos about aspects of Japanese culture that visitors should be aware of. For example, J..

The hometown of Kocho Racin, a place of poetry, culture, history and tradition – my first visit to Veles Last week, I travelled only a short distance from Skopje to visit Veles. It was a packed day as there was a lot to discuss and a lot of people to see and meet. Although Veles has a rich cultural history, our conversations were focussed on its future. Mayor Ace Kocevski talked about his plans for the development of the city and increased investment and the necessity of public administration reforms and decentralisation to allow the municipalities to deliver for their citizens. The UK is working with the Ministry for Information Society and Administration in support of the reform of the public administration. But delivering this across the country will be a challenging task and needs the engagement of the municipalities. I d..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 3rd October 2019 Vienna, Austria Brexit outreach events in Austria You may have seen on social media in recent weeks that the embassy is organising another round of Brexit events around Austria. Previous events (we have done 17 so far) have been an important opportunity for us to share information with British nationals in Austria and to hear about your experiences. This next round of events will start on Friday 18th October in Innsbruck. We plan later events in Salzburg, Vienna, Graz, Klagenfurt and Linz. To make sure places are available for people who are able to attend, registration will open at midday, a fortnight before each event. We are using different registration software this time – Eventbrite – based on your feedback from the last round of events. You can register your interest in the events now, and ..

Skip to content Leigh Turner Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna Part of UK in Austria 24th September 2019 Vienna, Austria A Tam O’Shanter in ViennaThe headgear is a subtle grey with a bright blue bobble. It sits aslant the head, keeping you warm and dry. I was delighted recently to attend the HQ of the London Scottish Regiment in Westminster to be awarded with a “Hodden Grey Tam O’Shanter”. How did this happen? The story begins with my decision in January 2018 to wear my kilt to Austrian President Van der Bellen’s annual diplomatic reception for ambassadors. This was the second time I had attended the reception. Both times, inspired by my Danish colleague in Vienna, I had cycled to the event rather than taking an official car. The second time, I had cycled in my kilt. The combination appealed to people, including President Van der Bellen himself (who is a keen environmentalist). In January 2019, ..

Skip to content Paul Brummell Head of Soft Power and External Affairs Department, Communication Directorate 23rd September 2019 London,UK PLEASED AS PUNCH We missed Special Guest Star Bobby Davro, who had opened the Hotham Park Country Fair in Bognor Regis, but watching the Punch and Judy show at the fair felt like a rite of passage for our five-year old son, George, in the company of his parents and great aunt and uncle. The show was put together by Professor Hazee, aka children’s entertainer Crazee Hazee, and in the time-honoured fashion featured a series of sketches involving squeaky-voiced Punch and another character: Judy, the baby, the crocodile, the policeman… As George quickly learnt the correct response of “oh, no, it isn’t!” to Punch’s “oh, yes, it is!”, it felt as though he was being inducted in Englishness. Punch and Judy indeed appeared in the list of the first twelve icons of England selected as part of the ICONS project in 2006, commissioned by the Department of Culture..

Skip to content Bob Last Deputy Head, UK Mission Political Team 23rd September 2019 Geneva, Switzerland Badly Opened Boxes There are different ways to open boxes of breakfast cereal. When my wife does it, the box looks like it’s been magically opened by a graceful spell – the packaging remains in pristine condition and the re-sealable cardboard tag slides effortlessly into its allotted place. Whenever I do it, it looks like a pack of ravenous velociraptors have erupted into our kitchen in desperate need of coco pops. This session of the Council feels like one that I was tasked with opening the box for. Whoever I’ve spoken to over the last couple of weeks about how things are going has given me a weary sigh and summed it up with the same word – messy. Preparation is so often the key to success, but the short gap since the previous session in July has left many here struggling to manage a surprisingly large number of tricky resolutions. Many of these are on situations which are hugely s..